Ohio Wesleyan’s symposium features special keynote sessions commemorating the life and work of Melvin Van Peebles by leading scholars and artists in film and media as well as the screening of two of Van Peebles’ classic films.
Thursday, March 30, 2023
- 6:15-7 p.m. – On-site Registration and Check-in – Strand Theatre
This iconic Delaware cinema has been showing first-run films for nearly 107 years!
- 7-9:30 p.m. – Movie Screening: The Story of a Three-Day Pass – Strand Theatre
Friday, March 31, 2023
- 8-8:30 a.m. – Morning Warm-Up – R.W. Corns Building 312
- 8-8:45 a.m. – On-site Registration and Check-in and Breakfast – Hamilton-Williams Campus Center Atrium (registration and check-in) and Benes Rooms (breakfast)
- 8:45-10 a.m. – Session I: Analyzing Melvin Van Peebles’ Revolutionary Films as Tales of Whiteness – Hamilton-Williams Campus Center Benes Rooms
Featuring Hélène Charlery, Delphine Letort, and Sam Smucker
While many scholars approach Melvin Van Peebles’ films through the “Black revolutionary” angle, this panel will focus on the folk-tale qualities of his productions and enhance how they deconstruct whiteness. Attention will be drawn to his years in France and how his understanding of French culture led him to lend a critical eye to the construction of French white masculinity, which he described through satirical pieces in Hara Kiri and in his French films (Les 500 Balles, 1961; La Permission, 1968). Returning to the U.S. in 1969, his subsequent films convey similar critical insights into the racial and gendered culture of white masculinity (Watermelon Man, 1970). bell hooks however noted that try as he might to break new ground for Black cinema in the U.S., Melvin Van Peebles imposed a pornographic, patriarchal frame to the representations of Black sexuality (Reel to Reals, 126). This panel aims to question the circulation of models of masculinity from white to Black characters through his French and American films. Each speaker will provide a detailed analysis based on a different film: Les 500 Balles (1961), La Permission (1968), and Watermelon Man (1970). The folk tale dimension of his productions will also be discussed as a form giving shape to the director’s political morality.
- 10:10-11 a.m. – Concurrent Session II:
- Session A: Smile For We: Seeing Black Men in a Different Light – Hamilton-Williams Campus Center 311
Featuring Damon Mosley
Positive Black men are invisible in today’s media landscape, because they are only shown engaging in violent stereotypes. Since the same people who watch movies and TV shows also sit on juries and cast votes, these negative portrayals serve to manufacture consent to harm Black men in real life.
Van Peebles’ legacy, as both an artist and an entrepreneur, was about giving Black people a sense of self through authentic representations in media. And Damon Mosley wants to pick up where he left off with a roundtable discussion about his new photo book “Smile For We,” led by Mosley and a few of the men featured in the portraits.
- Session B: RS/24 (Record Store Twenty-Four) Film Session – Hamilton-Williams Campus Center 304
Featuring Clayton LeBouef
RS/24 is an ethereal drama about one long night in the life of Hubie Jackson, owner of a small vinyl record shop. Nostalgic and magical, RS/24 explores the power of dreams, the wonder of great music and messages that transcend death.
- 11:10 a.m. - noon – Concurrent Session III:
- Session A: The Unmitigated Truth: New Directions in Documenting and Reading the Works of Melvin Van Peebles – Hamilton-Williams Campus Center 312
Featuring Alex Lozupone and Ann Matsuuchi
Melvin Van Peebles’ significance to American film and later generations of filmmakers is well established, but his transmedia work over the decades has extended into many less well-known but artistically significant areas. There are many important intersections between his writings, prose, poetry, art, music, theater, and film/video works that are under-discussed or isolated to different arenas.
This hybrid presentation will combine the screening of rare video clips of concerts, performances, and photos of Van Peebles from Alex Lozupone’s archives, with a reading of a paper on female subjectivity in Van Peebles’ work. This session hopes to offer insights into some of Van Peebles’ work in more recent years and challenge earlier critiques of how he presented Black women as disempowered sex objects, or impediments to the Black man’s liberation. This session will also highlight how Van Peebles’ use of satire needs to be elevated in scholarly conversations to further a more nuanced understanding of his body of work and enable new discoveries in his archive.
- Session B: RS/24 (Record Store Twenty-Four) Film Session – Hamilton-Williams Campus Center 304
Featuring Clayton LeBouef
RS/24 is an ethereal drama about one long night in the life of Hubie Jackson, owner of a small vinyl record shop. Nostalgic and magical, RS/24 explores the power of dreams, the wonder of great music and messages that transcend death.
- 12:30-2:30 p.m. – Welcome Luncheon and Opening Keynote with Wil Haygood – Hamilton-Williams Campus Center Benes Rooms
- 3-4:15 p.m. – Black Artists Roundtable: You’re Not Doing Us Any Favors – Hamilton-Williams Campus Center Benes Rooms
Featuring LaShae Boyd, David Butler, Marshall Shorts, and Shelbi “Shel10” Toone
A candid conversation on the contributions of Black artists to the art world and why when Black artists are present it is beneficial to everyone.
- 5-7:30 p.m. – Dinner Break with Food Trucks and BRUSH Experience (a collaboration art piece that everyone can participate in) – Food Trucks on the OWU JAYwalk (outdoor area in front of Hamilton-Williams Campus Center; BRUSH in the building's Benes Rooms
- 8-10 p.m. – Movie Screening: Watermelon Man – Hamilton-Williams Campus Center Benes Room B
Saturday, April 1, 2023
- 8-8:30 a.m. – Morning Warm-Up – R.W. Corns Building 312
- 8-8:45 a.m. – On-site Registration and Check-in and Breakfast – Hamilton-Williams Campus Center Atrium (registration and check-in) and Benes Rooms (breakfast)
- 8:45-9:45 a.m. – Concurrent Session IV:
- Session A: HOUSE PARTY! – Hamilton-Williams Campus Center Benes Rooms
Featuring Francine Butler
Black movement has been an agent for social commentary and change from the Cakewalk to the Wobble. In the spirit of Don’t Play Us Cheap, come prepared to have a funky good time as we explore Black social and theatrical dance from the late 1800s to the contemporary era. You don’t have to be a dancer. Participants may remain seated while doing the movements.
Comfortable clothes, shoes with good traction, socks (you can’t twist and shout if your feet are stuck to the floor), a towel, and a full water bottle are highly recommended.
Join Francine Butler, members of the Columbus and Delaware dance communities, and the Pacer Dance Team as we shake, rattle, and wobble our way through dance history.
- Session B: OWU Student Panel: Videographic Essays on the Work of Melvin Van Peebles – Hamilton-Williams Campus Center 304
Featuring Pedro Oliveira Figueiredo ’26 (“Why Can’t You Take Me to a French Restaurant? Van Peebles and the ‘Ordinariness’ of Black Stories”) and Mary Grace Duffy ’24 (“Visual Motifs and their Paradoxical Meanings in Van Peebles’ The Story of a Three-Day Pass and Watermelon Man”)
- 10 a.m. - noon – Movie Screening: Baadasssss! – Hamilton-Williams Campus Center Benes Rooms
- Noon - 1:30 p.m. – Lunch – On your own, see Local Restaurant Information
- 1-1:30 p.m. – Book Signing with Wil Haygood and Simone Drake – Hamilton-Williams Campus Center Benes Rooms
- 1:30-2:30 p.m. – Wil Haygood and Simone Drake in Conversation – Hamilton-Williams Campus Center Benes Rooms
- 2:45-4:20 p.m. – Artistic Responses to Melvin Van Peebles – R.W. Corns Building 312
Featuring Vaunita Goodman and Kathryn Weill
- Vaunita Goodman: Methane Mama and Melvin
Vaunita Goodman’s chance encounter with Melvin Van Peebles evolved into a life-changing companionship of the mind, spirit, and body through service to radically artful ways of living. Melvin Van Peebles’ bold, pleasure-seeking creativity gave birth to numerous achievements and fostered the careers of a diverse, cavalier group of way-finders.
Goodman aims to re-contextualize her first major production; a screening in which Van Peebles actively participated in 2015 in Baltimore, MD. That enthralling endeavor sparked her practice of Van Peebles’ politics of “Niggah Make Do.” Years later Goodman’s work is still evolving organically and authentically, sustainable by her ever-curious nature and the levity of the cosmos.
Methane Mama and Melvin is a theatrical presentation that demonstrates the visual languages of sensuality and story-telling with a focus on Astronomy and physical media using sound, dance, and short films to recount Goodman’s meteoric adventures inspired by and while keeping company with dear Melvin.
- Kathryn Weill: “Keep On Keepin’ On”
Melvin Van Peebles and Kathryn Weill were neighbors for six years in New York; they became friends and felt welcomed in each other’s home with an open-door policy. Never speaking on the phone, they would knock to see if it was a good time for a visit. As a photographer, Weill observed and captured what drew her in: Melvin was a willing subject, he didn’t pose, and she captured him in his daily life.
- 4:30-5:30 p.m. – VIP Cocktail Hour with Jasmine Guy (separate ticket required) – Hamilton-Williams Campus Center Campus Store
- 5:45-8 p.m. – Closing Banquet Featuring Poet Tyiesha Radford Shorts and Closing Keynote with Jasmine Guy – Hamilton-Williams Campus Center Benes Rooms
